Video: Yep, looks like Palin’s running for president

posted at 8:08 pm on September 21, 2010 by Allahpundit

She’s pushing this as a call to arms to elect tea-party candidates in the midterms but by the end of the clip it’s an out-and-out campaign ad, replete with beatific slow-motion shots staring up at the podium. The goal, very obviously, is to put her signature (literally, per the closing shot) on tea-party fee-vah after all the buzz this week from O’Donnell’s big upset. The latest poll, via McClatchy: Romney 25, Palin 18, Gingrich 16, Huckabee 16. That’s roughly in line with the new one from PPP a few days ago showing the big three or four bunched up at the top as usual. An interesting footnote:

What’s fascinating about Romney’s lead, as small as it is, is that it comes despite finishing fourth among conservatives. He gets 18% with them, lagging Gingrich at 22% and Huckabee and Palin at 21%. But he wins moderates by such a wide margin- getting 33% with Huckabee at 22% and the rest in single digits- that it propels him to the overall lead. If Romney can run even or just a little bit behind with conservatives but clean up in the middle that may just be enough to let him get the nomination.

As is the case every month Sarah Palin is the most personally popular of the Republicans, with 66% viewing her favorably. She is followed by Huckabee at 60% and Gingrich and Romney at 57%.

The problem for Palin is that a smaller percentage of the people who like her personally support her for President than any of the other Republicans. 37% of the voters who like Romney also say he’s their choice for the 2012 nomination and the same is true for 32% who like Gingrich and Huckabee. But just 24% who see Palin positively on a personal level translate that to intent to vote for her.

Romney’s task is simple: Figure out a way to neutralize enthusiasm among “true conservatives” in the early primaries by turning out moderates in higher than expected numbers, then wait for the rest of the field to shake out and run on competence against whoever’s left standing. Hey, it worked for Mike Castle, didn’t it?

Blowback

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Comments

Sorry, but anyone in political life who has to hide from the press and thinks living near Russia is valid foreign policy experience lacks the intellect and depth to run a country as complex as the USA. The job is simply over her head.

If you have any respect for our founding fathers, keep in mind that they believed that only the very brightest and most knowledgeable should hold the nation’s top office.

To borrow from Krauthammer, Sarah, please end your capricious campaign and move along (my hand is waving). Make way for Romney and other serious Republicans.

bayam

What a Mittbot. How much does he pay you to spew all these OLD TIRED LIBERAL talking points. Anyone who can’t at least acknowledge that she has been spot on with every criticism and position during the last year is in LaLa Land. Now you still might not want her to be your president, that is fine, but to say she isn’t SERIOUS?? You just gave yourself away.

Sorry, I guess it’s just a difference of perspective, but I was raised to believe that quitting is never good.

bayam

Amazing how long people will hang on to the “she’s a quiter” meme. I’ve yet to hear a good explanation for why Palin yeilding her governorship to a duly elected Lieutenant Gov was so terrible but Obama, Biden, Clinton, Napolitano, Sebelius, Vilsak etc leaving the offices they were elected to empty & requiring a special election or appointment was fine.

What a Mittbot. How much does he pay you to spew all these OLD TIRED LIBERAL talking points.

Dan Pet on September 22, 2010 at 1:51 PM

What do you expect? When you defend someone with a record like Rpmney (first in the nation to sign nationalized healthcare into law, pro choice, pro gun control etc); you can’t really expect to hear conservative talking points.

Sorry, but anyone in political life who has to hide from the press and thinks living near Russia is valid foreign policy experience lacks the intellect and depth to run a country as complex as the USA. The job is simply over her head.

If you have any respect for our founding fathers, keep in mind that they believed that only the very brightest and most knowledgeable should hold the nation’s top office.

To borrow from Krauthammer, Sarah, please end your capricious campaign and move along (my hand is waving). Make way for Romney and other serious Republicans.

bayam

And anybody who bases their decisions about which Presidential candidate to support on such a vapid misinterpretation of her comments is an insult to the serious commenters on Hot Air.

Amazing how long people will hang on to the “she’s a quiter” meme. I’ve yet to hear a good explanation for why Palin yeilding her governorship to a duly elected Lieutenant Gov was so terrible but Obama, Biden, Clinton, Napolitano, Sebelius, Vilsak etc leaving the offices they were elected to empty & requiring a special election or appointment was fine.

katiejane on September 22, 2010 at 2:00 PM

–Maybe because all the rest of them had another job to go to. If Palin worked for a company at a high level, the press release would have said she “resigned for personal reasons”.

Sorry, but anyone in political life who has to hide from the press and thinks living near Russia is valid foreign policy experience lacks the intellect and depth to run a country as complex as the USA. The job is simply over her head.

If you have any respect for our founding fathers, keep in mind that they believed that only the very brightest and most knowledgeable should hold the nation’s top office.

To borrow from Krauthammer, Sarah, please end your capricious campaign and move along (my hand is waving). Make way for Romney and other serious Republicans.

bayam

And anybody who bases their decisions about which Presidential candidate to support on such a vapid misinterpretation of her comments is an insult to the serious commenters on Hot Air.

November 2010 will tell the Tea Party and Republicans what our potential is for 2012.

If we truly are splitting the conservative voice and selecting (through the primaries, not through the political consultants!!) candidates who are too conservative for America to support, I’m confident that we will consider selecting a Presidential candidate for 2012 who is more Moderate than most of us would have liked but squishy enough to beat anyone the (D)s select.

However, if Election 2010 proves that America knows it needs conservatism enough to disregard the squishies the MSM tries to de-apathize into stopping us, and we conservatives carry the day like I expect we will——–how then can we perpetrate so great a sin as to fail to give America a strong conservative to lead our nation at a time when she clearly needs one and has shown she is willing to follow one?

If we truly are splitting the conservative voice and selecting (through the primaries, not through the political consultants!!) candidates who are too conservative for America to support, I’m confident that we will consider selecting a Presidential candidate for 2012 who is more Moderate than most of us would have liked but squishy enough to beat anyone the (D)s select.

However, if Election 2010 proves that America knows it needs conservatism enough to disregard the squishies the MSM tries to de-apathize into stopping us, and we conservatives carry the day like I expect we will——–how then can we perpetrate so great a sin as to fail to give America a strong conservative to lead our nation at a time when she clearly needs one and has shown she is willing to follow one?

What will our excuse be to future generations?

“We lacked courage, so we nominated Mitt.”

I’m supposed to tell that to my kids? And yours, too?

rwenger43 on September 22, 2010 at 3:16 PM

If the GOP takes the House and the Senate, it makes it much more likely that a Dem will win the WH in 2012. Neither party has done much good when it has the WH and both houses of Congress.

If the GOP takes the House and the Senate, it makes it much more likely that a Dem will win the WH in 2012. Neither party has done much good when it has the WH and both houses of Congress.

Jimbo3 on September 22, 2010 at 3:19 PM

Haha! I can hear Obama’s re-election ad in 2012 now: “help me prevent conservatives from preventing me from finishing fixing our economy. But since the economy is better than it was in 2008 or 2010, let me point out that it would have been better if you hadn’t thrown out all of my lackies in the mid-terms.”
Under normal patterns I would agree about the voters’ preferences. But the Tea Party has overridden normal natural patterns. If the TP stays involved for the next 2 years and the GOP sticks to any agenda that shows accountability, I am convinced this wave of conservatism will not recede before we have a chance to establish some significant bonds of trust and interaction with the American people.